VietNamNet Bridge – Rampant plagiarism of documents and theses has made Vietnam’s universities into centers of intellectual property infringement.

VietNamNet Bridge – Rampant plagiarism of documents and theses has made Vietnam’s universities into centers of intellectual property infringement.

Uni faculty members accused of plagiarism

Lecturer denounced for plagiarizing Korean dictionary

Dr Hung said that lecturers frequently use documents written by other authors in their works, but do not cite the sources. Such plagiarism has become the ‘habit’ of many lecturers for many years.

For example, several months ago, a lecturer of the HCM City University of Social Sciences and Humanity, Ly Kinh Hien, was accused of plagiarizing a Korean dictionary. When asked why he called himself the author of the book, Hien claimed that he did not understand the copyright law and that when the book was published here, copyrights were not protected in Vietnam.

Hung said that it is difficult to expose cases of plagiarism, because the number of theses made by students every year is very big and the practice of copying others’ work is so common that often the ‘original documents’ are themselves plagiarized.

Agreeing with Hung, Dr Vu Manh Chu, Head of the Copyright Department (a unit of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism), commented that in many research works, the ‘chief authors’ listed on the covers of the books were not the real authors of the book. They only arrange to get their names on these books so that they can accumulate more entries in their resumes, with a view to achieving promotion to the rank of professor or associate professor. Chu said that in these teachers should feel ashamed of themselves because they do not display the morality of teachers and the honour of scientists.

Truong Thuy Trang, Deputy Director of the HCM City Department for Science and Technology, said that the purpose of universities is to provide to society workers who not only have good knowledge and skills, but also have professional ethics. They need to understand that they must ask for the permission from other people when they use their works.

Trang stressed that universities need to build up their regulations on intellectual property management. These ought to include the provision for intellectual property protection, commercial development, profit sharing and necessary administrative formalities. The MoET official urged that responsibility for enforcing intellectual property management regulations be assigned to a specific office in the university administration.

Dr. Pham Duy Nghia, of the Law Faculty of HCM City University of Economics, said that from their first week at universities, students need to learn the principles of intellectual property protection. Further, so that teachers can successfully protect copyrighted materials, universities should encourage teachers to use the software tools designed to discover plagiarism that are readily available on the market.

Source: Nguoi lao dong